Darwin Correspondence Project

76 Sloane Street SW.

12 Oct 1864

Dear Sir

I notice your question in last Gardeners Chronicle & send you such information as I can get.^f1 It is perhaps hardly precise enough to print in the Chronicle   I therefore address it to you to deal with as you like.

In the notes to “Perkins A new Almanack” 1681^f2 are “Excellent Notes of Husbandry & Gardening for each month in the year”

``February Observations sow all sorts of Pease & other Pulse, sow mustard seed'' &c March x x ``make an end of sowing all manner of Pulse'' July x x ``gather garden beans''

I have been through our Almanacs from 1682 to 1693 & find no other allusion to gardening. If you are content with later dates I shall have much pleasure in further examining.

Yours truly | C Wentworth Dilke

Charles Darwin Esq

I ought to mention that our Series only commences with 1681— we have but one before that—1678.

Footnotes

f1

See letter to Gardeners’ Chronicle, [before 8 October 1864]. Dilke was one of the co-founders of Gardeners’ Chronicle.

f2

The reference is to Perkins 1681.